Blue Moon Knight wrote:Congrats to all winners! All of the entries were awesome, and the winners truly deserved it. In my opinion, the third place winner (Slyowl I believe) was my favorite, just because of the awesome depicion of the magic spells (the use of the trans-neon-green helicoptor blades just blew me away). A good use of magic goes a long way for me.

Once again, congrats to all the winners; and to those who didn't win: congrats anyway. You all did an awesome job.

I hope to see even more amazing MOC's and vig next year, (and I hope that next year I'll get off my lazy butt and actually enter). Until then, may the bricks be with you.

-BMK

I believe you have mistaken Slyowl for SuvieD. But I agree with you completely about the magic. It was a real cool touch.

Congrats to the winners! And for all those that didn't win, you made the contest fun and all had awesome entries. And thanks, Josh, for hosting the contest. It was really fun and is appreciated for all your work you put into it.

Goes around and shakes the winners hands. Good game, good game, good game. Oh wait, that’s what you say in tournaments.....ummm, Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations.

I must indeed congratulate the winners, for no one could have been better suited to winning. Why you may ask, because Josh picked them. All of us entered this contest with the knowledge that the winner would be the one that Josh thought was best. As Josh thought the winners best, then, for the purpose of this contest, they must have been the best. Certainly different people will have different views on whose was best. Personally, I think mine just blew the competition out of the water, was miles upon miles ahead of the rest. Mine was so good; you didn't even know it was so good. You just thought it was pretty good, that's how good it was. But my view on things has nothing to do here. Nobody's opinion but Josh's has any impact on anything.

And, um.............hmm, dang it! I had a totally kick butt awesome way of saying all this, something that was real logical and made perfect sense....I just don't remember what it was. My fault really. I wanted to write that little bit about how well I thought my creation was, and by the time it was over I forget how I was going to awesomely wrap it up. There's a lesson there, I'm a little vague as to what, but its there. It probably just: "Don't waist time writing silly stuff." Where was I? I forget. Anyone seen any moon bagels around?

Oh yeah, thanks for hosting this again Josh, I had fun building in it.

Goes around and shakes everyone's hand. Good game, good game, Good game!

Congratulations to the winners and non-winners alike - there were a huge number of very good MOCs in the contest.

My personal favourite was DNL's Siege of Hrothingas Castle - there were loads of great techniques in there, and the overall effect was spectacular. Good job, mate Jens' entry was also a lovely piece of work - the mumakil are superb, although I'd have liked to see the tusks filled in somehow.

Something that I've missed in some recent FC and CC contests is a feedback thread, even though I have mentioned/requested it. It can be very disheartening to (repeatedly) lose without knowing how to improve, even when you ask. Would it be possible to get feedback on our entries for this contest? Josh's comments last time were very helpful. I put a lot of effort, time and bricks and a reasonable amount of money (my collection really isn't very big) into my entry, and would value any constructive criticism I can have.

Thanks Kris I believe you have a death threat to carry out, though... j/k

jens wrote:You put it out, it is Josh's contest, so he choose the winner. You prefered SlyOwl's entry. It was well-built, a lot of Figs and action and comparatively big sized. Maybe that was the "mistake". If you have a big baseplate you have to fill it. A bag full of Orcs is the one, but Figplacement and compensation of action at the whole area is the other .

I'm not sure I understand that last sentence, but I guess you're saying that the action is not condensed enough. There's a couple of reasons for that:-Not enough people - I used up every Crownie, dwarf and troll (converted to minotaurs) I possess in there, as well as decalled psuedo-Crownies and generic castle/pirate torsos. I had aimed to build on a smaller footprint, but all the features I wanted to do just wouldn't fit in.-The actual battle is very spread out in the film, over a huge area, and is more running around than static hand-to-hand fighting. Battles didn't use up all the space available - a MOC with a figure for every 4x4 area of studs may end up looking too set-out/heavily designed, rather than reflecting the true chaotic nature.-Recently I've been reading a lot of historically-accurate novels and watching historically-accurate documentaries (anyone catch 1066: Battle for Middle Earth on BBC1 a few months back? Epic...) They've changed my view of how battles actually happened from the Kingdom of Heaven/LOTR style charging and clashing of thousands of troops to a more realistic view of skirmishes, small 20-man formations and static shield walls, which I tried to incorporate into my MOC, even if it wasn't like that in the film.In retrospect, I may have been better off building a couple of 32x32 dioramas instead...

SlyOwl wrote:It can be very disheartening to (repeatedly) lose without knowing how to improve, even when you ask. Would it be possible to get feedback on our entries for this contest?

It's quite possible that Josh is just too busy to collect, judge and give recommendations to every entry.

I'll give you some honest feedback. This is my honest opinion and please don't take it as a slight towards you or your 'building style'. In fact, this comment can be direct towards a lot of builders in general.You certainly have a building style, many if not most, of us instantly recognize your works. This is not a bad thing but, there is a darker side to this. Have you considered that you may be in a building rut and you just don't know it? Perhaps if what you usually do isn't quite making the grade, you should try a new tack. It doesn't mean that what you are building is bad but remember that the ones who are judging these contests are people who see your MOC's all the time and may not feel like rewarding you for building something that is quite similar to what they saw from you just a couple of weeks ago.

If you want to see just what I mean about being in a rut, all the while actually being caught in a rut, go look at all the 'star fighters'. All the most prolific builders, probably base most of their MOC's on the same framework. This allows them to be fast and if you build something awesome once, by proxy, if you based a lot of other MOC's off the same basic idea, they will be aweome too. Right? Some don't even bother to build with different colours. You may notice that they even get a lot of the same feedback on each creation. "Wow, this is full of win", if you follow the same contacts, over and over is often code for "I like this and I liked it last month when you used it but I'm too polite to point out to you that I noticed this fact."

Again, don't take it personally (actually, do but don't take it badly) as my comments are really directed at the LEGO community in general. You just happened to be standing (in the way) there. This is just my opinion but I'm positive that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Trevor

Trust me, I think I'm funnier than you do.Why do I have to add the word "minifig" to my spell checker every time I use it?!

Ye Olde Republic wrote:I'll give you some honest feedback. This is my honest opinion and please don't take it as a slight towards you or your 'building style'. In fact, this comment can be direct towards a lot of builders in general.You certainly have a building style, many if not most, of us instantly recognize your works. This is not a bad thing but, there is a darker side to this. Have you considered that you may be in a building rut and you just don't know it? Perhaps if what you usually do isn't quite making the grade, you should try a new tack. It doesn't mean that what you are building is bad but remember that the ones who are judging these contests are people who see your MOC's all the time and may not feel like rewarding you for building something that is quite similar to what they saw from you just a couple of weeks ago.

I'm in full agreement with you here. I do build in the same style most of the time, with largely the same colour palette and techniques. I don't particularly like it myself - I would like to move on into new territory. However, there are limiting factors.Obviously, time, effort, bricks and money are the main limitations - I'm on a tight budget and limited collection, and have only acquired suitable stocks of my basic colours through a gradual build-up from Bricklink over the past 18 months. This makes it very difficult to build in other colours when my collection is predominantly geared towards green, light grey and blue. I could, of course, have spent all the money I spent on BL on sets, and obtained a broader spectrum of colours and parts, but that's inefficient for bulk bricks, considering the small amount I spend.With building style, I find that what I do is effective and cutting-edge (i.e. not many people do it [yet]). Take grass-scaping: I could either revert to overlapping plates, or continue using more advanced grass-techniques. In a contest, the latter would naturally score better marks, and thus there is little incentive for me to change it. I don't think a contest should be judged on whether a MOC is new/different/good for the builder, but on the quality of the MOC alone. Thus, as my actual building style seems to "get-the-job-done" in a contest, I don't change it. Take Estrelaron - in essence it wasn't anything remarkably new (a rehash of Tirachinas, even), yet it won its category of the CCCVI. And then I try something new - Wot's a Wock? - and it doesn't place, unlike my other more routine entries. (I guess I might be sounding arrogant... not intentional, just trying to make my point )I suppose I wasn't asking Josh for an overall comment, but a criticism - what was it I did wrong? As he said, differentiation between entries in this particular contest often goes down to tiny details, which could easily be avoided, and thus is frustrating to think that a couple of pieces could have made the difference.

Hi, I'm glad you didn't seem to take my comments as an attack and I hope you don't this time either because I'm going to come straight at you. To paraphrase your earlier comment; you said you weren't getting the results you hoped for in some recent contests. Then, just now you say you're comfortable (not a bad thing) with the 'advanced techniques' you used in you MOC's and "they get the job done".

Obviously, they are not. To be successful we must be comfortable with changing on our own as the need arises, by recognising the need, ourselves. If we constantly speed through the same school zone and the police give us a ticket everyday, it is up to us to modify our own behaviour. The officer will aways tell you to slow down, but ultimately our decision to actually slow down and not get the ticket. An over-simplified example but it gets the point across.

It's fantastic to build what we want, how we want to build it and why we want to build but once you enter a contest, you open your MOC to another human being's perception, taste and prejudices. It's all well and good to say "I don't think a contest should be judged a certain way" but it's unrealistic to think otherwise.

Trevor

Trust me, I think I'm funnier than you do.Why do I have to add the word "minifig" to my spell checker every time I use it?!

Ye Olde Republic wrote:Hi, I'm glad you didn't seem to take my comments as an attack and I hope you don't this time either because I'm going to come straight at you. To paraphrase your earlier comment; you said you weren't getting the results you hoped for in some recent contests. Then, just now you say you're comfortable (not a bad thing) with the 'advanced techniques' you used in you MOC's and "they get the job done".Obviously, they are not. To be successful we must be comfortable with changing on our own as the need arises, by recognising the need, ourselves.

Ah, but what I was saying is that the techniques and styles themselves "get the job done" (and have done so), whereas it can be a question of technicalities to determine the actual outcome of the contest, which, as I said, can be frustrating. I understand that the judge(s) may want to see something new, but, from experience, it's the tried-and-tested formulae that do well. You're telling me that I should perhaps change my building style for the sake of building something different, but I don't see using a certain style as a problem in a (single MOC/category) contest. I am, however, open to modifying it; it's just difficult to do so, especially with numerous contest deadlines to meet. As you said, if what I'm doing "isn't quite making the grade", how could I improve my overall style/that employed in this contest?

Slyowl, as far as I could tell for this contest (skimming the entry thread and this one, basically) there were the basic rules to follow and the creations picked to win were based on the judges' likes. The winners, though good (certainly better than anything I could do with my level of experience and parts at hand) were not the best entries, in my opinion. I liked your big battle pretty well (your vig not so much, but hey) and all I can say is it's unfortunate you didn't place, but I don't think it's because of something like people are tired of your style... it was probably nothing more than the judge or judges (I don't even know how many there were) liking one MOC more than another. Sometimes you're just drawn to something... so don't take it personal, there'll always be contests in the future.

Feedback is always nice, though. Contests aren't a very good place for commentary, you just put up your entry and wait to see the results, and the only feedback you get is if you win and people go "yep, that one's nice". And then, if you say make a new thread for it people will just go, "we've seen this before". You're kinda stuck :/

SlyOwl wrote:Something that I've missed in some recent FC and CC contests is a feedback thread, even though I have mentioned/requested it. It can be very disheartening to (repeatedly) lose without knowing how to improve, even when you ask.

Hey Sly,

Sorry for not doing my normal CCC feedback this year. That always takes a lot of time and life got in the way. Would people be interested if I did a feedback thread even at this late date?

Hard to say you repeatedly lose. In the CCC you had one win and four honorable mentions from your six entries. This was only topped by Tom with one win and five mentions, and arguably tied by Daniel with six honorables but no wins. I have no inside information on this contest as it's all Josh's baby, but I'm sure yours ranked high here even if it didn't end up in the announced top three. I can tell you from having judged a lot of contests both here and elsewhere that judges pretty easily agree on what are the top X entries (X varying by the size of the contest, but for something like a CCC I'd say top ten), but then one of two things happens. Sometimes one entry is the hands-down winner, but more often within that top ten(ish) there can be a wide diversity of opinions on which one comes out on top due to personal preferences.

BTW, I didn't think Estrelaron was a rehash of Tirachinas at all, except maybe in the most trival of senses that there was a wall, a moat and a battle. Estrelaron has so many more details and the sense of action is much better.

I think, as with any contest, the running and judging of one requires both a lot of effort and enthusiasm. In the past I have enjoyed Bruce's post CCC commentary, but i've never found it essential to the process- often i'll have received comments from others about what they liked/disliked about my entry, and likewise seen them for a number of the other entries either here at CC or on flickr.

This is just my thoughts, but if Josh was to re-look at every entry and give reason as to why they didn't qualify, would require a huge amount of work on his part, and one without gain. He's devoted his time into the contest already, the contest is over, his role is complete. The discussion and review, I feel, is ours.